My Team. My History

January 13, 2007: Chelsea 4 - Wigan 0 at Stamford Bridge

There are very few things in my life that have the ability to almost wake me up before the sun comes up. Luckily for me, one such event is a great soccer game. I began playing soccer long before I knew it was the most popular sport in the world and long before I knew it would play such a big role though out my life. Back in 2002 when I switched from my New Territory Fusion Division 3 team to our Division 1 team, I couldn't have guessed how defining of an experience those next few years on that team were going to be. It was my first taste of truly high level sports, and I loved it. One thing I did not expect was that this same team would greatly influence my team of choice for at least the next decade.

Before this team, I had no real understanding about professional soccer or the Premier League. I didn't keep track of anything or anyone and had no real affiliation with a team (since at this point the Houston Dynamo weren't around). Therefore, I was completely open to outside influences at this point. Luckily for me, my new English coach at the time was a long time Chelsea fan, and he never minded explaining to our Arsenal loving trainer who the better team was. As I kept playing and practicing with my new team, I would learn more and more about this league in England with the best teams and players, and I quickly had to watch games on weekends, since I was hearing about them each week in practice and didn't want to be out of the loop. Fortunately for me, Chelsea had a great season, and I guess, as a young 11 year old kid, supporting a winning team is the most important thing.

My Chelsea support slowly grew as I got older, until luckily, in 2007 (my sophomore year of high school), I got the chance to visit Stamford Bridge and watch my team play. It was a long flight for just a weekend trip to London in order to watch my team first hand. Yes, my trip was only 3 days long, but it was well worth it. We beat Wigan 4-0. Our seats were incredible (as you can tell from the above picture), and I remember all of it like it was just last week. The two small English children sitting behind us, the chants of "Jose Mourinho" echoing through the Chelsea crowd, and, of course Frank Lampard's incredible free-kick to start the scoring. This quick 3 day trip was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and I have been aching for some way to get back there ever since. I have been able to watch my team from afar though, and feel connected through the history they have made these last years. Today being one of the biggest days since I began following Chelsea in 2002. As I said before, I have no close connection with Chelsea other than my support that I have given for these last 11 years, but I know that, had I missed watching today's game against Astonvilla, I would have forever been upset that I didn't witness Frank Lampard becoming the all-time top Chelsea goal scorer as it happened. Today was a big day for Chelsea as well as myself. It wasn't until I saw him score number 203, celebrate at the corner flag, and all the excitement from the crowd to have watched history that I felt the huge surge of pride from having been fortunate enough to have seen this great player play live and in person at least once in my life. If next week ends up being Frank's last game as a Blue, I can at least be proud to have visited Stamford Bridge while he still wore the shirt and that, through all his difficulties this year, he still made history. Thank you Lamps for a great 11 years.